Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sliding member, a sunshade device provided with the sliding member, and a motor vehicle equipped with the sunshade device.
Related Art
Conventionally, in a sliding member of this type, a sliding contact tool for a sunlight shielding plate of a sunroof described by JP-A H09-277835 is proposed. Typically, four sliding contact tools for a sunlight shielding plate of a sunroof are mounted on a sunshade. Each of the sliding contact tools includes upper and lower nipping pieces and a spring member.
In each of the sliding contact tools, the spring member is formed from a leaf spring which is made of a metal and curved in an arc shape. The spring member is placed between spring support pieces of the lower nipping piece in a space between the upper and lower nipping pieces. The spring member is supported at its support ends supported by the spring support pieces of the lower nipping piece. Accordingly, the spring member is curved at its central portion from the support ends toward the upper nipping piece in the arc shape.
The respective sliding contact tools are mounted on the sunshade as follows. A description will be given by an example of the construction of the sunshade, for mounting the respective sliding contact tools on the sunshade. The sunshade has a mounting part for the sliding contact tool as described below.
The mounting part includes an L-shaped notch, a recessed notch, and a protrusion. The L-shaped notch is formed by cutting out a corner of a side edge of the sunshade in an L shape. The recessed notch is formed by cutting out a longitudinally central portion of the side edge of the sunshade in a recess shape. The protrusion is formed at one side edge of the sunshade between the L-shaped notch and the recessed notch.
When installing each sliding contact tool on the sunshade as constructed above, the upper nipping piece of the sliding contact tool is kept to be open away from the lower nipping piece. In this state, while the lower nipping piece of the sliding contact tool is abutted at its lower nipping piece against a lower surface of the sunshade, a connecting portion a hinge portion of the upper and lower nipping pieces is engaged within the L-shaped notch of the sunshade, and the spring support pieces of the lower nipping piece and the spring member are engaged within the recessed notch of the sunshade.
Thereafter, the upper nipping piece is closed to nip the protrusion of the sunshade with the lower nipping piece. Thus, the protrusion of the sunshade is nipped by the upper and lower nipping pieces between the hinge portion of the upper and lower nipping pieces and the spring support pieces of the lower nipping piece. In this way, the sliding contact tool is installed on the sunshade. Similarly, the remaining sliding contact tools are respectively installed on another corner of the one side and corners of the other side edge of the sunshade.
When in this way the sliding contact tools installed on the sunshade are mounted on both guide rails, the lower nipping piece of each sliding contact tool comes into slide-contact at its sliding contact projection with a lower inner wall surface of each guide rail. On the other hand, the upper nipping piece of each sliding contact tool is pressed at its projection against an upper inner wall surface of each guide rail by an elastic force of the spring member to come into slide-contact with the upper inner wall surface. As a result, the sunshade is supported by the both guide rails via the sliding contact tools.
In the foregoing sliding contact tool for a sunlight shielding plate, however, the spring member is curved in the arc shape as described above. For this reason, it is necessary to perform extra works including machining to curve the spring member in the arc shape and annealing after the machining.
Further, in case the sliding contact tool is mounted on a guide rail, it is necessary to manage appropriately the degree of curvature of the spring member and the distance between support ends, for appropriately setting a reaction force of the spring member against the guide rail. Consequently, it causes drawbacks that these works become troublesome and difficult works.